TNN was showing it uncut over the last 2 nights so naturally I watched it. And they put up the warning that says it's an American movie classic and it has violence and language and sex in it. They leave in the language and the machine gunning and shooting everyone in the face. But they blur out the titties on Micheal's Italian wife! What the hell is that? That's false advertising to claim it as uncut and then not show part of the movie.

Shit pissed me off. I'm writing to TNN about it.

FunkyFingers

19-09-2002, 15:35:52

Never mind, I thought it was dull, slow, overly-long self-indulgent pile of mafia-fetishist nonesense. I actually fell asleep before the end of the film so bored I had got.

I borrowed the DVD Triology box-set and so therefore didn't even try with 2 and 3. Bah.

Funkodrom

19-09-2002, 15:42:16

:hmm: It's great. 2 is also great. 3 isn't.

FunkyFingers

19-09-2002, 15:44:08

It's not, it was completely dull :sleep:

Mind you, I have to say, what TNN did to the broadcast sounds like pure fraudulent lying - definitely complain!

Venom

19-09-2002, 15:55:38

Oh I'm gonna complain. And I'm gonna complain about you calling it boring. It's most defintely not. It's old school mafia style before Tarantino and those bitches got involved in it.

Funkodrom

19-09-2002, 15:57:35

Yeah. It's a movie from back when you could tell a movie without having to have a car chase or fight every 5 minutes.

Venom

19-09-2002, 15:59:01

It doesn't have action but it oozes old school style and the actual political plotting that goes on between these families.

FunkyFingers

19-09-2002, 16:07:37

You could tell it was a movie? I thought it was a PowerPoint slide show, with an accompanying open-reel taped voice over.

I just thought it was dull - the political plotting was so overdone it was just so predictable, and, frankly, boring. You couldn't give a stuff about any of them, who cared what "plotting" was going on? Some of the acting was so wooden that they may as well have been a slide show.

Funkodrom

19-09-2002, 16:09:56

Surely a puppet show if it was wooden?

Venom

19-09-2002, 16:11:16

It's so predictable because everyone has since copied it 20 times over.

FunkyFingers

19-09-2002, 16:16:16

Copied a slow, self-indulgent wade through a load of pointless,violent bickering between a large group of self-interested, 1-dimensional "characters", badly scripted, shot badly and in need of a serious edit.

Hmm, sounds interesting.

Venom

19-09-2002, 16:18:35

Says the guy who likes Treebeard.

FunkyFingers

19-09-2002, 16:20:17

But he's MEANT to be wooden - he's a sentinent Tree :p

Venom

19-09-2002, 16:46:12

Sure he is.

walruskkkch

19-09-2002, 20:08:58

I think the transformation of Michael Corleone through 1 and 2 is very interesting.

Venom

19-09-2002, 20:10:39

Also a great part of the story. He despised the family business at the beginning of 1. And by the end of it, he kills everyone aligned against his family. And despite what you say Funky, I think it was a well written and totally believable transformation.

walruskkkch

19-09-2002, 20:22:12

There is a version out there where 1 and 2 were cut so that the action proceeded in a chronological fashion, much of 2 is told through flashbacks. It help make the story a little easier to follow. BOth of these though stand alone as great movies.

FunkyFingers

20-09-2002, 08:32:20

His character transformation was about as exciting as watching paint dry. :sleep:

Funkodrom

20-09-2002, 08:55:17

I found it interesting seeing all the bits that other gangster films had... been influenced by and I really liked that the violence was so sporadic, especially at the beginning. Mostly about family life but then someone has to go and kill someone or leave a horses head in their bed.

FunkyFingers

20-09-2002, 09:00:55

"sorry darling, just got to pop out and leave a horses head in someone's bed".

Bah.

King_Ghidra

20-09-2002, 10:05:40

so far funky hasn't made one point which doesn't also apply to his beloved lord of the rings books.

to call it mafia-fetishist is like calling star wars space-fetishist or saving private ryan war-fetishist. It's an empty criticism with no value to accuse a film of being about what it is about.

How exactly is it self-indulgent?

How is the 'violent bickering' 'pointless' given that every violent act exists wthin the context of the story of mafia family war?

How is it shot badly? That is such a bizarre criticism.

Calling the characters 1-dimensional is a totally unfounded observation. At the very start of the film we see Marlon Brando's character thinking about his daughter's wedding but being dragged back into the mafia business he would just like to escape for one day. Later we have the brilliant death scene where he plays with his grandson, pretending to be a monster in his garden.
This isn't some guy ritchie shit with people presented as caricatures. The interaction betwen the family, constantly aware of each other's 'rank' and importance, being deferential to their elders, the way the women are marginalised from the real business of the family - something which causes cracks in michael corleone's relationship with his wife, are all brilliantly observed.

The denoument in which Michael Corleone takes the vows of the godfather in chruch intercut with the shots of his enemies being murdered is an incredibly powerful moment of cinema.

There are so many other great moments, if only i didn't have to work i'd happily describe them all day...

FunkyFingers

20-09-2002, 10:32:53

It's a long film and it's a slow paced film, plus It's a film where pretty much nothing happens that you don't already expect to happen. Lord of the Rings is also long and relatively predictable for a fantasy-quest film. Fair enough, these are all unarguable facts about both films. I'm not saying that LOTR is the best book or the best film of all time, I'm just saying that I didn't enjoy The Godfather, nor can I see why people think it's such a great film.

I personally felt that The Godfather, as a film that was supposed to give the viewer the "personal" side of the mafiosi, to bring over the "human" elements of the families, to show that they're not all just bloodthirsty, uncaring gansters, was ineffective, and self-indulgent.

They were caricatures, extremely so. Everyone's behaviour was exactly what you would expect a movie mafia gangster to do, heavily exaggerated even. Plus they're all so odious characters in the first place, I never felt any empathy for them, so their struggles, or their arguements, or their violent deaths are all irrelevant, it didn't matter to me at all what happened.

The whole wedding scenario at the beginning - I felt that didn't give any sense of Brando's worry about his daughters wedding whatsoever, the whole event was staged to make him "appear" to be a family man - he couldn't have cared less about it, and that's how it came across.

The vows of the godfather bit? How was this powerful? Ugly, sure, but not powerful. Given all the scenes that went before with the quiet, slow, family scenes, intersperced with occasional bouts of extreme violence, it came as no surprise, nor with any extra effect for me.

The garden bit - to me this just felt extremely, obviously, sentimental; a sort of "let's show a scene where the aged old man realises how he's wasted his life being a violent old bastard".

I just felt that there was so much of going over the same points in the film, it wasn't interesting. It was a boring, slow paced, overly long, self-indulgent film.

King_Ghidra

20-09-2002, 10:50:53

Originally posted by FunkyFingers
The garden bit - to me this just felt extremely, obviously, sentimental; a sort of "let's show a scene where the aged old man realises how he's wasted his life being a violent old bastard".

there is no way in this scene that brando shows that he thinks he's wasted his life being violent, that is a gross misjudgement, i don't even see how it could be interpreted that way.

It purely shows that he is human and not a monster, and of course that not all deaths occur in spectacuar shoot outs but that violent men can die of a heart attack in their gardens just like you and i.

FunkyFingers

20-09-2002, 10:53:50

Thing is, I wanted the old bastard to hurry up and die in the garden, it was so obvious that that was what was going to happen and I was glad when he did, at least it meant the film was drawing to a close.

Funkodrom

20-09-2002, 11:21:00

The reason it's possibly predictable, like LotR is predictable these days, is because it's been copied so many times.

Venom

20-09-2002, 11:59:06

I already said that.

King_Ghidra

20-09-2002, 11:59:39

predictable.

Venom

20-09-2002, 12:12:09

And I really can't even rationally argue with Funky about this. He's so wrong on so many levels it's impossible to dicuss this without flying into fits of rage.

King_Ghidra

20-09-2002, 12:18:37

it's true - i had to tear my cowies hair out

Venom

20-09-2002, 12:19:14

I killed a spider in the office I was so angry.

King_Ghidra

20-09-2002, 12:19:51

woah! calm down man, don't end up like don corleone

Venom

20-09-2002, 12:21:09

It's a good thing he's gone because I was about to start tearing up some scrap paper!

FunkyFingers

20-09-2002, 12:24:41

You're angry with me for not liking the film?!
It's just my opinion, I found it irretreviably dull and I can't see the merit in it, but hey, I know you like the film and your opinion is as important as mine. I can't help the fact that I fell asleep and switched it off before the end, that's just how I felt about it.

King_Ghidra

20-09-2002, 12:27:16

he's trying to start us up again, venom, don't fall for it

Venom

20-09-2002, 12:30:07

ARRRGRGFGRHRHRHHHHHH

There goes my notebook.

FunkyFingers

20-09-2002, 12:52:52

:p

walruskkkch

20-09-2002, 16:55:23

SOme people remain blind to even the greatest beauty. Can't be helped.

Debaser

21-09-2002, 10:49:54

Originally posted by FunkyFingers
Never mind, I thought it was dull, slow, overly-long self-indulgent pile of mafia-fetishist nonesense.

Fair enough if you thought it was dull, slow, and self-indulgent, but how can you criticise The Godfather for being "mafia-fetishist"? Surely that is a redundant point. Would you go to see The Lion King, then when you were leaving say "It was ok, bit cartoony?", or would you criticise Saturday Night Fever for being too disco-fetishist?

I agree it is overly-long and very slow though, but it would make an excellent 100-120minute film.

Funkodrom

21-09-2002, 10:54:33

:lol:

King_Ghidra@home

21-09-2002, 16:34:26

Originally posted by Debaser

Fair enough if you thought it was dull, slow, and self-indulgent, but how can you criticise The Godfather for being "mafia-fetishist"? Surely that is a redundant point. Would you go to see The Lion King, then when you were leaving say "It was ok, bit cartoony?", or would you criticise Saturday Night Fever for being too disco-fetishist?

didn't i already make this point about 17 posts previously :rolleyes:

plagiarist :p

Debaser

22-09-2002, 11:20:20

Originally posted by King_Ghidra@home

didn't i already make this point about 17 posts previously :rolleyes:

plagiarist :p

Oops, sorry Phil, I only read the first 2 posts before replying. You know what they say about immitation and flattery blah blah blah...